Sunday, 25 September 2016

Online
shopping automatically appears to be the simplest option when shopping for
clothes, but is this really the case? Or is our society just becoming lazy?

With
the latest deals and discounts exhibited on every social media site and the
idea of simply searching this seasons trends within seconds; there’s no doubt
about it that online shopping is incredibly enticing. Whilst all being at the
touch of your fingertips, consumers now have the ability to search, select and
buy wherever and whenever they want. The
convenience of home deliveries, wider variety of choice, and (often) lower
prices, makes online shopping an ever-more attractive option. Some may
argue that the ‘old ways’ of shopping trips are preferred, as the likelihood of
returning the product is minimised due to the availability of trying on a
garment before it’s purchased, and in-person visuals of how the clothing looks,
and feels. But as a society; are we
becoming too lazy to make the journey to our local shopping centre, or are we
simply adjusting to the recent technological advances that allow us to make a
more secure decision on purchases, even though we have only virtually seen the
products.

According
to research, 45 percent of consumers prefer online shopping for clothing and
additionally, 72 percent of consumers usually use e-commerce sites to search
before making the trip to clothing stores.
However, would these figures alter if, as consumers – we were guaranteed
with great fit from sizing and shape from online shopping, even though there is
no ability for the customer to physically try on the garments?

Fits.Me
is a relatively new software that can be installed into e-commerce websites which
allows consumers to virtually ‘try on’ the garments, enabling them to visualise
the fit and shape of a garment that they physically cannot try on. Companies that use this software can then
record the data from existing customers and thus collect records of their
customer’s preferences, aiding in the development of latter clothing
collections from the brand. In addition,
it will also help the brand that has the Fits.Me software to detect their
typical consumer, and how well they are in fact grasping the attention of their
target market. This is particularly
useful as they will then gain extra knowledge of what their audience prefer and
be able to design suitable collections in the future to cater to the mass of
their customers. Founded in 2009, by two
technology-savvy business men; Paul Pällin and Heikki Haldre, Fits.Me is now
headquartered in the centre of London, where its technology is ever-evolving
and is beginning to appeal to more and more brands. The founders initially set up Fits.Me in
order to evolve around their belief in ‘the respect for fit’, and controversially
the belief that fit is also potentially one of the most neglected area in most
online shopping experiences. Pällin and
Haldre expected that if they created a business that combated these areas then
brand loyalty as well as long-term consumer value will increase and it should
successfully drive a better brand experience.

According
to Crunchbase, an online database consisting of investments, business firms and
start-ups, in September 2010 a seed investment of $1.75 million was funded into
the company to enable an improvement in software. Five years later, Fits.Me was then brought
outright with 100% stake by Rakuten Inc., one of the world’s leading internet
service companies. From confirming this
incredibly important business decision, Fits.Me will benefit incredibly due to
the larger funding supplies from Rakuten, allowing an increase in technological
developments and research. It will also
strengthen the e-commerce offerings due to Rakuten being a lead specialist in
its field of work, thus allowing the brand to accelerate their planned growth
on a global scale, and start targeting brands worldwide, for example, they
would be able to entice the United States, Asia and in addition; European
brands.

The
‘virtual fitting room’ technology works through information provided from the
company about their products; fit, stretch, silhouette and construction method
(e.g. type of weave/knit, fabric choice) and combines this data with the
shoppers measurements and fit preferences, to ensure the customers can see the
best virtual visualisation of how the garment should look on themselves. Each
garment will be encoded with its own unique set of characteristics, which will
then be detected by the dynamics of consumer measurements and personal
opinions. Once a consumer selects the
size that they would like a ‘virtual fiiting room’ appears were the customer
can the digitally visualise the fit, and shape of the garment. This is a much more specific representation
of what the garment would look like on the payig customer, compared to regular
photoshoot images that are seen on online shops which are usually flat, simple ‘invisible
mannequin’ pictures.

One
of the companies aim is to eliminate the stigma around ‘sizes’ and replace with
‘fit’. This seems like an appropriate
movement as the fit of a garment is one of the most important things, and
nowadays consumers – especially female customers have a lot of self
consciousness about what size they are and what size clothing they buy. With Fits.Me having this motto, it may help
this bracket of consumers forget about what a label says and actually consider
more what they are wearing and how it makes them feel. Fits.Me offers a recommendation feature within
its programme; ‘Fit Origin’; that aids the shopper to decide which compromise
is best, in order to achieve the best fit for that garment. I believe that by having this feature it will
reduce the statistical figures of returns to companies, as it will mean
consumers will not need to buy and order multiple sizes of the same product, in
the hope that one will fit/suit them eventually. Due to seeing a virtual fitting on their computer
screens they are then more likely to buy the correct size in the first place
due to the digital mannequin adjusting to that particular customer’s personal
size measurements and silhouette preferences.
In a BBC article, Mr Haldre said that as consumers will become more
confident with the fit of the garment before they have theoretically tried it
on, they are more likely to shop more. "It removes the risk when buying online. And when this
risk is taken away, the sales for the retailers increase. Fits.me virtual
fitting room users buy almost two times more than non-users." This statement shows that the Fits.Me
software is not only beneficial to customers, but to the retailer as well as.

In
today’s day and age, we - as consumers, are becoming more demanding with what
is made available to us. When we like
what a company offers; its service and products, we are then more likely to
reuse and revisit that particular brand and purchase more products due to the
consumer relationship we have built with the brand. Every personal measurement that consumers
submit into that particular brands website is recorded and saved for future purchases,
this highlights to us that customer personalization is key, as it saves the
consumer time when revisiting the website, and as a lazy society that we are,
this is a much appreciated feature.
These elements may bring more trust to the brands that are using the
Fits.Me software, due to pleasant experience that customers had whilst online
shopping, and happy customer’s means ... more revenue for the brand. Consumers will then begin to become aware of
Fits.Me’s specific software and will potentially be more likely to choose other
retailers online that too have the Fits.Me software installed on their
e-commerce sites. This result will allow
the Fits.Me brand to act as a pioneer between the clothing brands, which will
be thus aiding shoppers to a wider variety of clothing due to the good quality
service that the Fits.Me software provides.

Some
retailers that have already fitted their websites and launched Fits.Me are
Thomas Pink, Henri Lloyd, QVC, T.M. Lewin and Pretty Green. “Fits.Me constantly allows us to experiment
with new technological capabilities to improve search and discovery. We encourage using the fit recommendation
tool, it only takes a few seconds and statistics show that we improve
conversion by 21%”. Henri Lloyd.

Currently Fits.Me has approximately 25 million customer profiles
installed into their software data accounts, with over 250 thousand garments
listed on various brands sites. They
believe that the more research that is fuelled into the software, the better
the technology will develop - “Science, data and fashion, all working together to
create a personalized shopping experience”.
According to Mintel’s “Barriers to buying clothes online, July 2013”
study, they exhibit that the second most important factor (53%) is the difficulty
of finding clothing that fits well without trying it on, and 80% of consumers
say that ‘when shopping online it is difficult to tell if the clothes will fit’
(“Attitudes towards browsing and shopping for clothes online, July 2013”). These statistics show that there is a very
high demand for technology; such as Fits.Me, to expand their software to
popular/high street companies, so a wider audience can be reached and thus
appreciate a tailored experience via online shopping.

Like many other businesses, Fits.Me have social media accounts such as
Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. With its
main advantage being a free platform to advertise and communicate with their
customers, Fits.Me use these sites to display other emerging technological
innovation in fashion, as well as controversial model stories, fashion
performance and robotic advances. These
may appeal to their followers as typically one may assume that their following
fan base are those that are naturally interested in the brands ideologies and
future happenings. With their social
media sites being hyperlinked at the bottom of every page on their website, and
their website url being featured in the biographies of these social media
accounts, it allows great customer access and easy transitions from one site to
another. The simple and easy-to-be-seen
links make it so useful for potential customers as allows them to see what
other consumers think and what the brand offers, with their morals and ideas
for future development.

As a whole, I believe that the company has a great ethos behind the initial
startup of Fits.Me. Since researching
into Fits.Me I feel it is now equally as important for other online retailers
to provide services or features on their websites that allow consumers to help
find the correct fit and size of a garment.
I understand that technological coding and advances come at a costly
price, however from previous experiences of online shopping I know that it is
incredibly frustrating when ordering products online hoping that they will fit
by comparing size measurements and model pictures, to resulting in the items
not fitting. These bad experiences can
often put off consumers from shopping with that brand, or even shopping online
as a whole. Fits.Me has proven that
software like theirs is greatly beneficial, and that other e-commerce sites
should make it a priority of theirs to create an increased company-to-consumer
relationship, by providing similar services and software advances like Fits.Me
have.